Working together to deliver a long-term vision for the Trent Valley could provide significant economic, social and environmental benefits. That is the finding of a recent report, commissioned by Derbyshire County Council, on ‘The future economic value of the Trent Valley’.

The report compares two contrasting approaches to future development in the Derbyshire section of the Trent Valley:

Continuing to follow an uncoordinated approach to the development of the area, in which changes will occur in a disjointed, piecemeal fashion with the potential to result in a degraded natural environment.

Adopting a coordinated approach to the area’s development, which would involve all sectors working together to establish a long-term vision and strategy for the Trent Valley landscape that could deliver environmental, social and economic benefits.

The report found that, by 2050, the coordinated approach could deliver:

£2.8 billion per year in additional economic benefits (i.e. benefits over and above those that would be achieved through an uncoordinated approach);

£80 million per year in additional social and environmental benefits;

150,000 jobs.

These findings add significant weight to the vision, approach and benefits identified in the 2015 report, ‘Bigger and Better: How Minerals Local Plans can help give nature a home on a landscape scale in the Trent and Tame River Valleys’. This report, which was produced by NAM and the RSPB in partnership with a wide range of stakeholders across six counties, set out a vision for the Trent and Tame River Valleys to ‘once again be one of Britain’s greatest wetlands’. It promoted a coordinated and landscape-scale approach to the biodiversity-led restoration of the 8,000ha of current or allocated mineral sites in the Trent Valley. The report also highlighted the wider benefits of taking this approach, including benefits for flood mitigation, health and wellbeing, access and recreation and the local economy.

The RSPB, NAM and other stakeholders will continue to advocate this approach, using the findings of the Derbyshire County Council report to help spread this message to a wider audience.